Today’s Headlines: Biden’s classified documents to be reviewed by a special counsel

Hello, it’s Friday, Jan. 13, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

Special counsel to review Biden’s classified documents

Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland has named a special counsel to investigate the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents that were discovered at President Biden’s office and home.

Garland tapped the former U.S. attorney for Maryland, Robert Hur, to conduct the investigation and examine whether “any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter.”

A special counsel has more independence to conduct an investigation, but ultimately the decision on whether to prosecute is left to the attorney general.

More politics

• Kevin McCarthy serves a reliably red California district. But conservatives voters there, who criticize him as being an establishment Republican, cheered the standoff over his House speakership.

Sign up for our California Politics newsletter to get the best of The Times’ state politics reporting and the latest action in Sacramento.

Fires, floods and storms leave Montecito residents scared

In the town of Montecito, where the median home costs $5 million, it’s hard to imagine anything ever goes wrong here. And most of the time, nothing does.

But massive storms, fires and the positioning of the town in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains have resulted in a precarious existence for the mostly wealthy residents, who on Monday were ordered once again to evacuate as record-breaking rains battered the coastal enclave.

The beachside town in Santa Barbara County has become synonymous with Hollywood types looking for a home away from the shutterbugs of Tinseltown. But not even the celebrities are spared from the biblical rains.

More about the storms

• How California’s slew of storms stack up to previous drought-busters.
• Nearly all of California exits the worst drought categories in the U.S. Drought Monitor.
• Flooding could turn Monterey Peninsula into an island, stranding residents for days, officials warn.
• What is causing the conveyor belt of storms battering California? There’s a short answer and a long answer.
• Here are the parts of L.A. County most likely to be hit by catastrophic flood.

Long COVID symptoms can linger for a year or more

A study of nearly 2 million patients in Israel offers new insights into the trajectory of long COVID, particularly for younger, healthier people whose COVID-19 cases were mild.

Researchers found that although most protracted symptoms subsided within a year, some of the syndrome’s most debilitating consequences — namely dizziness, loss of taste and smell, and problems with concentration and memory — still plague a minority of sufferers a full year after the initial infection.

Stay up to date on variant developments, case counts and vaccine news with Coronavirus Today.

Exxon Mobil publicly denied global warming but quietly predicted it

New research suggests Exxon Mobil Corp. had keener insight into the impending dangers of global warming than even NASA experts but still waged a decades-long campaign to discredit the science on climate change and its connection to the burning of fossil fuels.

Despite its public denials, the major oil corporation worked behind closed doors to carry out an astonishingly accurate series of global warming projections between 1977 and 2003, according to a study published Thursday in Science.

CALIFORNIA

Amid concerns over three deaths, LAPD releases video. LAPD Chief Michel Moore addressed the three deaths at Tuesday’s meeting of the Police Commission, promising to make public body-camera footage available.

City National Bank agrees to settle U.S. complaint of racial bias in L.A. home loans. The bank, the largest headquartered in Los Angeles, has agreed to pay $31 million to settle a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit alleging racial bias in its home mortgage lending in Los Angeles County.

Berkeley’s People’s Park is again in a fight for the ages, now over UC student housing. A state appellate court heard oral arguments Thursday over its tentative ruling last month that could delay UC Berkeley’s plan to build badly needed student dorms.

NATION-WORLD

2022 tied for the fifth-hottest year on record, NASA says. In what has become a grim annual tradition, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday that 2022 was one of the warmest years in modern recorded history.

American Navy veteran held in Russia is released. Russia has released a U.S. Navy veteran who apparently illegally crossed the border from Poland into the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad last year and was held there for nine months.

Saudi Arabia is giving itself an extreme makeover with ‘giga-projects.’ Will it work? Enlisting some of the world’s star architects, Saudi Arabia is launching mammoth development projects by the dozen that it says will remake the country’s oil-based economy, cement its claim as the region’s commercial superpower and supercharge its cities’ ascent to global status.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

Lisa Marie Presley, singer and daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, dies at 54. Lisa Marie Presley suffered cardiac arrest at a home near Calabasas. A source familiar with the incident told The Times she collapsed and had trouble breathing.

Inside the tale of a real-life child killer so intense it made its director faint. After the trial ended, filmmaker Alice Diop decided to explore the story through a dramatic lens. The resulting film, “Saint Omer,” is somewhere between fiction and documentary.

Canceled “Minx” finds a new home after HBO Max pulled the plug. Starz announced Thursday that it will be the new home for the comedy series from writer and executive producer Ellen Rapoport, and premiere its sophomore season.

Who is Bizarrap and why is Shakira trashing her ex with him? The Colombian pop star’s biting new breakup jam in collaboration with Argentine DJ-producer Bizarrap generated a million YouTube views within minutes of its release.

BUSINESS

Did you just find your #dreamjob, or is it a scam? Employment scams have skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic as remote positions become the norm and employers become increasingly dependent on online forms of communication. Plus: How to avoid being tricked.

Inflation slowed to 6.5% in December, easing fears of more aggressive interest rate hikes. Rising consumer prices in the U.S. moderated again last month, bolstering hopes that inflation’s grip on the economy will ease.

OPINION

Column: Is our aging population a time bomb, or an opportunity? California is about to be hit by an aging population wave, and Steve Lopez is riding it. His new column will focus on the blessings and burdens of advancing age — and how some folks are challenging the stigma associated with older adults.

SPORTS

Will Trevor Bauer play Major League Baseball again? What executives around the league are saying. Bauer is now a free agent, but the market will be a lot more hostile toward the 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner than it was two winters ago, when Bauer signed a three-year, $102-million deal with the Dodgers after turning down a lucrative offer from the New York Mets.

Charles White, USC Heisman Trophy winner and national champion, dies at age 64. A bruising, battering ram of a tailback, White barreled his way to one of the most decorated careers, not just in USC history, but the history of college football.

Breaking down and predicting six NFL wild-card playoff games. Los Angeles Times NFL writer, Sam Farmer examines this week’s playoff matchups in the NFL wild-card round.

YOUR WEEKEND

“Phantasma Gloria,” is part of an ongoing art project in the frontyard of Randy King Lawrence’s Echo Park house named “Randyland.”

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

See the kaleidoscopic Echo Park home that’s drawing visitors from around the world. Randlett King Lawrence has plenty of credits as a Hollywood set and prop builder. But his neighbors know him best as the man who built the “Phantasma Gloria” — his name for the massive contraption of steel rebar and more than 1,000 colorful glass bottles that looms above the front of his home.

A guide to craft breweries on the Greater Eastside of Los Angeles. Unlike some of the more established breweries in the South Bay or downtown L.A., most of the breweries in the Greater East L.A. area have been open for less than five years. These new breweries reflect a growing diversity in the groups that make, drink and enjoy craft beer.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.

You’re not imagining it. You stuff IS actually worse now. Many products made today fall apart faster than the same ones made 10 or even five years ago. A number of factors, including climate change and the way companies shape consumer expectations, created this shopping environment. Vox

Sitting all day can be deadly. Five-minute walks can offset harms. One study found, irrespective of whether a person exercised, if they sat for more than 12-13 hours a day, they were more than twice as likely to die early, compared with people who sat the least. A new study finds you can cut that risk with strikingly small amounts of activity. NPR

The “Buy Now, Pay Later” Bubble Is About to Burst. Americans have used layaway programs since the Great Depression. Today’s pay-later plans flip the order of operations: Rather than claiming an item and taking it home only after you’ve paid in full, consumers using these modern payment plans can acquire an item for just a small deposit and a cursory credit check. The Atlantic

Trying to read Prince Harry’s “Spare’” from your library? You might wait up to a year. That’s the estimated wait time for the lucky library card holder at the back of the line at Orange County’s public library system, whose estimated wait time for a copy is 55 weeks, as more than 700 people are on hold for its 100 or so copies. Los Angeles Times

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Johnny Cash performed at the Folsom Prison prison cafeteria before a raucous crowd 55 years ago. The live album resulting from the first event, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” was heralded as a breakthrough for Cash’s career. It was a commercial smash, spending two years on the pop charts and selling more than 2 million copies. The album later led to Cash’s prime-time television series.

We appreciate that you took the time to read Today’s Headlines! Comments or ideas? Feel free to drop us a note at headlines@latimes.com.